Serbia Signs Agreement on Purchase of 400 Million Cubic Meters of Gas from Azerbaijan – Joint Construction of Power Plants Running on Natural Gas Planned Too

The minister of mining and energy of Serbia, Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic, signed today, as part of her official visit to Baku, the Memorandum of Understanding between the relevant ministries of Serbia and Azerbaijan, which deepens relations in the field of energy.

Also, Djedovic Handanovic signed a commercial contract between the gas companies Socar and Srbijagas, which will enable deliveries of up to 400 million cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan to Serbia by the end of next year, the Government of Serbia announced.

She explained that the signing of the memorandum deepened the bilateral cooperation between Serbia and Azerbaijan in the field of energy and ensured the supply of gas from that country in quantities of up to 400 million cubic meters of gas per year until 2026, while a billion cubic meters of gas would be supplied after that.

The minister said that after the construction of the gas interconnection with Bulgaria, Serbia would have Azerbaijan as another gas supplier.

– After the completion of the Balkan Stream gas pipeline, which has provided additional security and opened a new supply route, we are now realizing our strategic goal of diversifying the suppliers and additionally strengthening our position as a transit country for gas supply of Central Europe – pointed out Djedovic Handanovic.

According to her, the completion of this gas interconnection is expected in the coming days., whereby the infrastructural requirements for the new gas supply source will be met as well.

The minister added that the signed memorandum opened up other opportunities for cooperation between the two countries, concerning the delivery of liquid natural gas through LNG terminals in Turkey and Greece, as well as potential cooperation on the development of capacities for the construction of gas power plants and gas storage facilities.

She pointed out that all the projections showed that Serbia’s needs for natural gas would grow in the current decade and that the total consumption of gas was expected to increase from around three billion cubic meters in 2022 to around four billion cubic meters by 2030.

– The memorandum and the agreement that were signed today enable us to count on bigger quantities of gas and on more suppliers, which will bring us greater security in supplying our citizens and economy, and upon the completion of the gas interconnector to Bulgaria, we are also planning new interconnections, primarily toward North Macedonia – announced Djedovic Handanovic.

The minister of energy of Azerbaijan, Parviz Shahbazov, said that with the help of strategically important documents that had been signed that day, the basis for multilateral cooperation in the field of gas had been established, including, for the first time, the delivery of gas from Azerbaijan to Serbia.

He specified that, based on the deliveries of gas to Serbia in the amount of 400 million cubic meters of gas a year, the number of the countries which would be supplied with Azerbaijani gas had increased to eight.

According to him, that is a clear indicator that Azerbaijan is expanding its mission and that it has a role of a reliable energy partner which increasingly contributes to energy security.

Ministarstvo rudarstva i energetike Republike Srbije

JP Srbijagas Novi Sad

Ministry of Mining and Energy of Serbia

Srbijagas

Socar

Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan

Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic

Parviz Shahbazov

gas from Azerbaijan

delivery of gas from Azerbaijan